Is there a free HM Land Registry map? What you can and can't see for nothing
Yes, there's a free HM Land Registry map. Here's exactly what the free options show you (boundaries, registration), what still costs £7 (the owner's name), and how to actually use them.
Yes. There's more than one free HM Land Registry map, and they show you genuinely useful things for nothing. There's also a hard line where "free" stops, and it's worth knowing exactly where that line is before you go looking, because the thing most people actually want, the owner's name, sits on the paid side of it.
Here's the honest breakdown: what you can see for free, what still costs money, and how to use the free maps well.
The short answer
There are two free ways into HM Land Registry's mapping:
- MapSearch — a free online map you can search by address or area. It shows which parcels are registered and their title numbers.
- The INSPIRE Index Polygons — a free, downloadable dataset of every registered freehold boundary in England and Wales, published under the Open Government Licence.
Both are free. Both show you boundaries and the fact of registration. Neither shows you who owns anything. For that, you need the title register, and that costs £7.
What the free maps actually show you
A free HM Land Registry map answers two questions well:
- Where are the registered boundaries? You can see the shape and extent of registered freehold parcels.
- Is this particular bit of land registered at all? If there's a polygon over it, yes. If there's a blank, it may be unregistered land, which is a more interesting answer than it sounds.
That second point is the one people overlook. The free map is just as informative where it's empty as where it's full. The gaps are the roughly one-tenth of England and Wales that never made it onto the freehold register.
What still costs money
This is the part the word "free" hides. The free maps deliberately contain no owner names. That isn't a missing feature; it's the design. Names live in the title register (and the title plan), which you buy per title:
- Title register — names the registered owner, plus rights, covenants, and charges. £7.
- Title plan — the official boundary plan for that title. £7.
So the realistic shape of a free search is: use MapSearch or the INSPIRE data to find the parcel and its title number for nothing, then decide whether the £7 to put a name to it is worth it. Often, for curiosity, it isn't. For anything you're serious about, it is.
(The £7 fee doubled from £3 in late 2024, so older guides quoting £3 are out of date.)
Free map options, compared
| Option | Cost | Shows boundaries? | Shows owner? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MapSearch | Free | Yes | No | Looking up a known address quickly |
| INSPIRE Index Polygons | Free (download) | Yes (all of England & Wales) | No | Mapping or browsing the whole picture |
| Title register / plan | £7 each | Yes (official plan) | Yes | Putting a name to a specific parcel |
How to use the free maps well
A free map rewards knowing what you're looking for. Two honest tips:
- MapSearch is a lookup, not a browser. It's built around "I know this address, show me its title." It's less comfortable for "let me wander around and see what's unregistered near me," because it isn't designed for panning and spotting gaps.
- The INSPIRE download is powerful but heavy. It's the complete free boundary dataset, but it ships as large GML files that need GIS software like QGIS to open. Brilliant if you're technical and patient. Hard going if you just want to look. We explain the dataset itself in what INSPIRE Index Polygons are.
If you want the free data without the GIS homework, that's the gap we built Edgelands to fill: we download, convert, and tile the INSPIRE polygons for all of England and Wales so you can pan around a normal map and see the registered parcels (and, more to the point, the gaps between them) without touching a GML file. It's £5 a month with a 7-day trial. The underlying data is the same free open data; what you're paying for is not having to wrangle it yourself. The names still cost £7 from the registry, same as for anyone, because that's the one thing nobody can show you for free.
A note on Wales and Scotland
This all covers England and Wales, which share HM Land Registry and the INSPIRE dataset. Scotland is separate: it has its own Registers of Scotland and its own ScotLIS map, with different free and paid tiers. If the land you're looking at is in Scotland, start there instead.
FAQ
Is there a free HM Land Registry map? Yes. MapSearch lets you view registered boundaries for free, and the INSPIRE Index Polygons are a free download of every registered freehold boundary in England and Wales. Both are free to look at; the detail behind a boundary is what costs money.
Can I see who owns a property for free? No. The free maps show boundaries and registration, never names. The owner's name is in the title register, which is £7.
What is MapSearch? HM Land Registry's free online map. You search an address or area and it shows which parcels are registered, with their title numbers. It's a lookup tool, not a browser, and it doesn't show owners.
Are the INSPIRE polygons the same as the Land Registry map? They're the boundary data behind it: the free, downloadable boundaries of every registered freehold in England and Wales. MapSearch is one way to view registered land; the INSPIRE download is the raw data you can map yourself or browse through a tool that's done the work.
Why is some land missing from the map? Because it isn't registered. Roughly a tenth of England and Wales still isn't on the freehold register, so it has no boundary to draw. Those blanks are the unregistered land, not errors.
Next: how to find out who owns a piece of land, or the full run-down of maps of unregistered land compared.